inertial freedom
(quote from a slashdot post, and part of my response)
If you can’t tell if you’re free or not, are you really free?
Yes, you can be! I would argue that you can’t perceive your own freedom until you have something to compare it with or something that changes it. Consider the degree to which you’re free as a frame of reference … if there’s nothing accelerating it (one way or the other), you couldn’t determine the extent to which it’s there.
We can compare our own freedom to the relative lack of freedom slaves of the atlantic slave trade era had. We can also detect when things infringe on freedoms we enjoy — for example, when laws are passed restricting free speech. Even more, we can hypothesize about not having such freedoms (see also: 1984).
But if we’re all equally free, and don’t have reminders of that freedom (ie: history, fiction), then we won’t be aware of it. Further, even with reminders, when those reminders aren’t at the forefront of our consciousness, we will not be aware of freedom, the same way we’re not constantly aware of breathing, or of our hearts beating, but we are aware of them when we have problems with them.